Sunday, February 28, 2010

I love this set by John Olson, done for LIFE in I guess about 1970. I tried to find it in the archives on their site and can't. Lots of photos of Kanye and Lady Gaga, though. PASS. Rockstars with their parents:

Looks at Elton's mom! Could you die? I could. Look at her smile! She's so excited about her boots and her badassical son!

I saw the young Crosby on a '69 episode of Cavett recently (did I post about that already? sounds like something I would do) and was amazed at how very young he was. Probably 23! Joni Mitchell said, "Doesn't he look like a lion?" in her dreamy way.

So I met Miss Lil for the first time last week. She's been working at The Royale for 3 decades, and still closes the bar 5 nights a week by herself. I wonder if she carries a gun. She watches over the place like a hawk and is obviously prepared to handle any bullshit at any time.

Surreptitious photo of Miss Lil. Check her out! Her hair was impeccable btw.

The amenities.

After trying to crash a birthday party there and finding the bar full of visibly trashed, sometimes aggressive patrons, we bailed for friendlier territories...

...Where Cindy made a lucrative discovery -

Only to give it back in a fit of good samaritanism when the guy who lost it returned and started inquiring about some lost money, talking of hard times and being a single dad. Well, sort of. Whatever makes Cindy feel better. HA

It's pouring outside. I can't go out there. I expressed this issue to a pal who is from a place where they do have weather. She asked me if I think I'm some kind of witch vampire who will melt in the rain or something. I said, yeah.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

instead of deconstructing abolitionist principles of the 1830s, i am going through my flickr account, updating tags. i thought i would share this hilarious photo of my dad in about '69. i keep meaning to print this out for him, for a couple of reasons. one, to ask him what in the god hell happened to that fruit basket lamp of my grandmother's. it is almost ugly enough to fit into my decor. and two, to ask him why he thought a blue sweater would ever go with those leather pants.

i can recognize just about every item in this picture from my grandmother's house, except that lamp of course. the mirror and end tables are in my house. that entire nativity set on the card table behind him was eventually destroyed by fighting cats, only to be replaced piece by piece, year after year. that's his senior portrait to the left, and his second wife to the right. two more would follow her (including my mother), and i think he's working on number 5 now. one more and he'll have caught up with this fool.

Monday, February 22, 2010

ever heard of the witch of staten island? i hadn't, and i'm guessing a lot of other people haven't either owing to the fact that i found ONE relevant result for this on google. one! even i have more of an internet presence than that.

this case caught my interest partly because it was, at the time, the case of the century (i would say trial, but there were multiple, and all botched) excepting the whole lizzie borden fracas, and partly because my special man EAP opined on it on multiple occasions.

polly bodine is alleged to have brutally axe-murdered her sister-in-law and infant niece while her brother and their husband/father was off at sea in 1843, then burned their house down to cover her tracks. the description of the corpses is still pretty grisly considering the delicate and vague way these things were documented at the time. housefire-baked brains, dude. because polly was a fallen woman, she was demonized in the press as some sort of fang-toothed prostitute who randomly expels dead babies in jail (i think they just didn't know she was pregnant. she lost the baby after being arrested) among other creepy practices. a series of famous names weighed in on the scandal at the time - poe said he hoped they didn't try her in staten island, because the barney fifes out there would fuck it all up (they did) and pt barnum is the one who began calling her the witch of staten island. then, while she was on trial again in nyc, he had a wax statue fashioned in her image and put on display, except they used plenty of artistic license and the thing came out looking more like some halloween decor.

she was found innocent. the whole case was rather mysterious, from evidence to motivation (the house was lightly burglarized and polly was seen pawning some of the shit that had gone missing before her arrest - but she apparently had plenty of her own money. spite theft?) not included in the article i will link was some commentary on the part of her brother, the man whose wife and child had been hacked to pieces on christmas eve. he said, and i paraphrase, "ey! i can get another wife, and i can get another child, but can i get another sister? no." needless to say, modern cold-case types have decided that polly was the one who killed them and that the retarded 19th century court system is to blame for "vindicating" her. no one else was ever suspected, obviously. much of this i learned from a bowery boys podcast. the rest you can read here.

meanwhile i have not worked on this paper i'm supposed to write. thanks internet.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

i am making progress with this thing. i need someone to do some hand-lettering for me for my next one. i keep trying - i suck. all i know is it's going to say LIVE EVERY WEEK LIKE IT'S SHARK WEEK. i love 30 rock, i love shark week, i love embroidering. this, will be awesome.

i had an extended conversation last night about sharks and crocodiles and why they are scary. these supernaturally fucking evil badass creatures freak me the hell out. particulary the crocodile "death spin" - dude! you know what's a little scarier than that? the death spin executed by an albino crocodile.